Early post-traumatic pulmonary embolism in intensive care unit: incidence, risks factors, and impact outcome

Abstract

Background: Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a well-established complication of trauma. Recent studies suggest that pulmonary embolism (PE) may occur very early, and even immediately, after injury. The aim of this study is to analyze the incidence, risk factors and prognosis of early PE among ICU trauma patients. Patients and Methods: We conducted a twenty-month-long prospective cohort study, including all trauma patients with a confirmed PE diagnosis admitted to our ICU between January 1st, 2017 and August 31st, 2018. Early post traumatic PE was defined as pulmonary embolism diagnosed within the first 72 hrs of injury. All the patients who were included were systematically screened for early PE on day 3. Results: During the study period, 365 trauma patients were admitted. The diagnosis of post-traumatic PE was confirmed in 66 patients (18%). In our study, 27 patients (41.5%) developed a PE within 72 hrs of trauma. According to our analysis, the factors associated with the development of early post-traumatic PE in multivariate analysis were obesity (P=0.049; OR=4.04), high SOFA score (P=0.003; OR=1.67), and the use of surgical procedures (P=0.033; OR=4.87). Furthermore, sepsis and ventilator-acquired pneumonia were associated with late PE (P=0.019; OR=5.87). Overall, the mortality rate was at 19.7%. Yet, the patients who were diagnosed with early PE had a higher mortality rate compared to the late PE group (33% vs. 10.2%, respectively). We found that the only independent predictive factor of mortality among the patients with early post-traumatic PE included in this study was the APACHEII score on ICU admission (P=0.011; OR=1.44). Conclusion: Our study cohort showed that many of the post-traumatic PEs occur early in the post-traumatic period. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first prospective study conducted in an ICU to apply a systematic screening protocol for post-traumatic PE diagnosis. Further studies with larger patient populations are required to create more accurate predictive models.